Saturday, August 28, 2010

Dicy Netherland and John Saul, Jr. - "Gone to Texas"

The term, "Gone to Texas", or "G.T.T.", was quite common during the early to mid-1800s, when so many settlers moved further west to claim unsettled land. Much has been written about Texas migration, including my own post on this blog over a year ago, in which I mentioned another blogger, Vickie Everhart. The author of BeNotForgot, Vickieis the administrator of a website for those who are researching ancestors who allegedly migrated to Texas from Mississippi and other states.

Recently, when I began researching the Fenner, Neatherlin/Netherland, and Pettus families, I discovered that they, too, were among the families who were said to have "Gone to Texas." I can't imagine what these families experienced when they left their homes in wagons for an unknown area and an often unsafe frontier known as The Republic of Texas. Among these families was one headed by John Saul, Jr., whose wife, Dicy Ann Netherland, was a daughter of my third great-grandparents, Rachel Fenner and William Neatherlin, Sr.

Yesterday, I wrote a post on Cemeteries of Dancing Rabbit Creek about the Saul family. Around 1824, John Saul, Jr. left the Mississippi Territory with his wife, children, and his parents, John Saul, Sr. and Rachel Saul, settling in the Nacogdoches District of Texas around 1826. Most researchers agree that John Saul, Jr. was born in Georgia before his parents moved into the Mississippi Territory and that he married Dicy Netherland in Mississippi around 1817. Interestingly, Neatherlin child, Dicy's brother, William Neatherlin, Jr., married the sister of John Saul, Jr., Easter Saul. Eventually, John Saul, Jr. moved his family to Williamson County, Texas, where he and Dicy later died and are buried. Yesterday's post includes photos of the grave stones of Dicy and John Saul, Jr., in Bagdad Cemetery, near the town of Leander, Texas. According to a profile included in "Daughters of the Republic of Texas, Volume I, Patriot Ancestor Album," Dicy and John Saul, Jr. are memorialized as early pioneers and patriots of The Republic of Texas.

My research is only beginning, and it certainly looks as if I have much more to do. But I have already found one thing for sure - the trail for many of the Fenner, Neatherlin/Netherland, Pettus, and Saul families seems to end in Texas.